“Oh… yes,” Luna said, faintly embarrassed. “I was just… I don’t know, don’t you think it suits him?”
“I –” the stranger began, as Luna finally managed to grab hold of Fillmore’s struggling body – whatever had gotten into him, hereallydidn’t want to leave this guy! – and, without meaning to, brushed hands with the man, who was still trying to keep Fillmore away from the cake that was plastered across his chest.
“Oh – ouch!” Luna said, jerking her hands back. A little static shock had jumped between them at the moment they’d touched – no big deal, but Luna couldn’t help but feel like she was just making an already stupid situation worse.
Great, my dog ruined his delicious cakes, and now I’m electrocuting him.
“You – you have to let me replace those cakes,” Luna said, trying to find some way to make it up to him. She pointed at the shop behind him, which bore a sign readingSylvie’s Sweets and Bakery. “Are they from this bakery here? Please, just let me know what you ordered and I’ll go buy it all for you again. It’s the least I can do to try to make things up to you. I just can’t believe Fillmore would do a thing like this!”
“Oh… no, don’t worry about it,” the stranger said – and Luna couldn’t help but notice his voice sounded a little stunned. Looking up at him – and geeze, he somehow seemed to be getting better-looking by the minute – she saw he had a kind of stunned-looking expression on his face, too.
Well, she could hardly blame him for that; he was probably still getting over the shock of having Fillmore throw himself into his arms and his cake ruined.
“No, I insist,” Luna said. “This was completely my fault – I should have been watching Fillmore better, and I think he’s just… over-excited or something. He really is usuallymuchbetter behaved. I don’t understand it at all.”
“No… no, like I said, please, you don’t need to worry,” the stranger repeated himself. “It was my fault, I knew it was a – I mean, he’s just a dog, he probably smelled something he liked. Don’t worry though – I grabbed him before he could lick anything. Well, before he could lick thecake, anyway. He didn’t eat any chocolate or anything like that.”
“Oh, thank you,” Luna said, realizing that in amongst everything else she hadn’t thought of that possibility. “You’re really being so,sogood about this. If you were yelling at me in the middle of the street right now, I totally couldn’t blame you.”
Luna really wouldn’t have, either – from the smells wafting out from the bakery, she bet that cake would have tastedreallygood.
She really felt like she had to dosomethingto make it all up to the man – she’d definitely buy him new cake, no matter what he said. If he wouldn’t accept it from her now, she’d just have it delivered to his door – or take it there herself if she had to, with a note of apology. She didn’t think she could look him in the eye again, so she’d just leave it on his doorstep before running away, hanging her head in shame.
But first, she guessed, she had to find out where to take the cake.
“Are you staying in town for the festival?” she blurted, unable, for the moment, to think of any subtler approach. “Or are you a local? Do you live in town?”
“Staying?” the guy asked, both his voice and his facial expression still kind of weirdly stunned and dreamy. “I’m… no, I’m not staying anywhere. Just my car.”
Luna blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that – not that it was any of her business why he was living in his car, but it made things a little more difficult in terms of cake delivery. “You… you live in your car?”
He shook his head, holding up his hands. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I was just… planning on staying in the mountains, with my car. So I haven’t booked any place to stay. I was just going to, uh, roam around a bit, I guess.”
“Oh, I get it,” Luna murmured. To be honest, helookedlike the kind of guy who could look after himself while roaming around a mountainside. Aside from all the scruffy masculinity, he just had some air of…competenceabout him, like he was a guy who knew how to handle himself in any situation. Well,almostany situation, since being attacked in broad daylight by an inexplicably infatuated tiny dog had clearly taken him off-guard, but Luna couldn’t say she blamed him for that.
Itdidmake it kind of hard to order some replacement cake for him, though.
Or meet up with him again. I guess there’ll be no serendipitous meetings over the hot dog stand if he’s heading up into the wilderness.
Luna shook her head, trying to push the thought from her mind, reminding herself that her dog had just made a complete mess of his day – it was pretty unlikely he’d want to see either of them again anytime soon, no matter how nice he was being about it.
“But… if you’re in your car, then won’t it be hard to get yourself cleaned up?” she said, the desperation in her voice clear even to her own ears. For some reason, shereallydidn’t want to let this guy go without at leasttryingto improve onthe disastrous first impression she – and Fillmore – must have made on him. “I can at least help you with that, if you don’t mind staying in town for a couple more hours – the place I’m staying at won’t mind doing your laundry for you, it’s included as part of the cost of my stay! Look – you have chocolate all over you! Nothing gets chocolate out!”
The guy –Oh my God, I haven’t even asked his name, I really should do that –only seemed to look vaguely down at the mess on his chest, blinking at it as if he’d somehow forgotten all about it in the last five minutes.
“Oh, right,” he said after a moment. “It’s no problem – it’s an old shirt. A few stains won’t make much difference.”
“No, I reallydoinsist this time,” Luna said firmly. Maybe she couldn’t get this guy some new cake – though she really hadn’t quite given up on that yet – but she couldn’t let him go without getting him clean. “You’ll attract ants, apart from anything else. There must be at least a gallon of sugar on you right now. I promise I won’t keep you long – but I really, really want to make this up to you somehow. Won’t you let me get your clothes clean?”
She bit her lip, hoping she didn’t soundtooforward… or weird… or desperate.
Shewasdesperate, but that was beside the point!
The stranger seemed to hesitate a moment longer, but something about his expression told her that he was giving in.
I mean, even if he never wants to see me again,surelyhe also doesn’t want to have to drive around all sticky and… uh… sticky…
Luna blinked. Her mind had wandered off for a moment, and she forcefully wrenched it back.
